Zero Net Energy - August 1, 2016

I’m noticing a cross-over now between zero net energy building and city agriculture, two subjects I follow and publish links lists on.  The archive of the city agriculture links list is at cityag.blogspot.com

Net Zero Plus

The NetZero Plus Electric Training Institute (NZP-ETI), opened recently in Los Angeles, and is the largest net-zero plus commercial building retrofit in USA which “will function as a living laboratory, educational facility and demonstration center for advanced and emerging clean energy technologies."

http://nzp-eti.com

http://inhabitat.com/largest-net-zero-plus-commercial-retrofit-in-the-us-opens-in-los-angeles/

Eco-Cooler

http://inhabitat.com/this-amazing-bangladeshi-air-cooler-is-made-from-plastic-bottles-and-uses-no-electricity/

https://youtu.be/jPuh8IFbIzQ

I’ve built a version of this for myself and it seems to work although mine is just a small test model

All terrain off the grid survival vehicle

http://www.treehugger.com/tiny-houses/survival-van-conversion-off-grid-all-terrain-john-mcelhiney.html

New home construction moving towards net zero

http://cleantechnica.com/2016/06/23/new-construction-homes-moving-towards-net-zero-california-leads-way/

Retrofit home in Whatcom County, Washington produces twice the energy it now consumes (in an area with solar insolation of 3.5 - 3.0 kWh/square meter/day)

http://sustainableconnections.org/news/sc-press-releases/100-powered-by-sunshine-first-home-in-whatcom-county-to-receive-net-zero-energy-certification

http://inhabitat.com/retrofitted-net-zero-home-in-washington-produces-double-the-energy-it-needs/

Virginia Beach,VA 10,500-square-foot Brock Environmental Center turns rainwater into drinking water, produces 83% more energy than it uses

http://inhabitat.com/incredible-net-zero-energy-brock-environmental-center-turns-rainwater-into-drinking-water/

http://www.cbf.org/brock

Net Zero Energy Vermont - blog focusing on making Vermont the first zero energy state

http://www.netzeroenergyvt.net/

Net zero energy feasibility study for Vermont buildings (and beyond)

https://www.efficiencyvermont.com/news-blog/whitepapers/net-zero-energy-feasibility-study

Net zero downtown Montpelier design competition

https://netzerovt.org/design-competition/

Siemens new Munich headquarters, using 90% less electricity and 75% less water than what the building it replaced

http://www.worldarchitecturenews.com/project/2016/26904/henning-larsen-architects/siemens-hq-in-munich.html

http://www.henninglarsen.com/news/archive/2016/06/one-of-europe’s-most-sustainable-buildings-inaugurated.aspx

http://inhabitat.com/renovated-siemens-headquarters-in-munich-now-consumes-90-less-energy-and-75-less-water/

Los Angeles net zero solar powered  20 unit apartment building:  Hanover Olympic 

http://www.hanoverolympic.com/eco-green-homes

http://www.hanoverolympic.com/los-angeles/hanover-olympic/photos/

http://inhabitat.com/first-solar-powered-net-zero-apartment-building-in-los-angeles-opens-its-doors/

Nanjing China zero net energy Green Light House

http://www.archdaily.com/792110/nanjing-green-light-house-archiland-international

http://inhabitat.com/zero-carbon-nanjing-green-lighthouse-is-a-beacon-for-sustainable-design-in-china/

Net Zero community in Salt Lake City

http://www.buildingsaltlake.com/net-zero-community-coming-salt-lake/?mailchimp_signup=1

Telus Gardens in Vancouver, LEED Platinum with indoor gardens

http://inhabitat.com/vancouvers-greenest-office-building-envisions-a-new-kind-of-office-space-with-telus-garden/

http://henriquezpartners.com/archimemo/telus-garden-grand-opening/

http://www.officemb.ca/work/telus-garden/

LIAR Living Architecture

"This project will develop blocks able to extract resources from sunlight, waste water and air. The bricks are able to fit together and create ‘bioreactor walls’ which could then be incorporated in housing, public buildings and office spaces.”

http://www.ncl.ac.uk/press/news/2016/07/liarlivingarchitecture/

Floating House - 100 sqm residential unit, 12 m in diameter and 4 m high, made entirely of recycled laminated timber on a recycled aluminium hull.

http://www.ecoflolife.com/floating-house/

Universal Energy Access: IAP at MIT with e4Dev

e4Dev, a student group at MIT interested in Energy for Development, is organizing a four day course on
"Exploring the intersection of energy and human development
Racing Towards Universal Energy Access:
Why the Next 2 Billion Users Matter (more than you think)"

I wonder if they'll use Buckminster Fuller's World Game design criteria, "How can we make the world work for 100 percent of humanity in the shortest possible time through spontaneous cooperation without ecological damage or disadvantage to anyone?" or one of Bill McDonough's Ecological Design Principles, Use only available solar income.

e4Dev, if they wanted to, might be able to do all or part of the course as a webinar or a MOOC [Massive Open Online Course]. After all, they do have a Ustream channel (http://www.ustream.tv/channel/e4dev) and MIT is part of EdX (https://www.edx.org/school/mitx).

----------------------

"More than 1.5 billion people lack access to basic energy services. This is not inherently problematic as access to energy is not in and of itself a goal of development. Energy access has, however, been identified as a potentially important component in enabling many essential quality of life improvements.

"In a four-day series of lectures, case studies, interactive activities, and the development of an energy access project evaluation strategy, students participating in this course will be exposed to the challenges and opportunities in energy access for the developing world with possibility of continuing work on projects into the Spring if they choose.

"Led and facilitated by Prof. Ignacio Pérez-Arriaga, MIT Energy Initiative Deputy Director Rob Stoner, and a variety of guest speakers, lectures will provide working knowledge of:
The current state of energy access (and what it means to provide access);
The connection between energy access and various aspects of human development work; and
Financing mechanisms and business models for energy projects in the developing world

"The course listing is now available on the the IAP 2014 site, and a more detailed description of each day can be found on the MIT Energy Initiative calendar (http://mitei.mit.edu/calendar).

"DETAILS
Date: Tuesday, January 7 – Friday, January 10
Time: 9:00am – 12:00pm
Location: Building E17, Room 128 (E17-128), 40 Ames Street, Cambridge, MA 02139"

More information at http://18.9.62.56/calendar/e4dev-introduction-energy-and-human-development-session-2-energy-and-human-development

Small Scale LED Lighting + Off-Grid Cell Phone Charging in Mali

Matt Berg currently serves as the Information Communications Technology (ICT) Coordinator for the Millennium Villages Project based out of the Earth Institute at Columbia University in New York City and prior to that, was the director of the Geekcorps Mali program in Bamako, Mali.

Inspired by Jan Chipchase, I put together the following photo montage [pdf alert] covering the ever increasing number of cheap Chinese LED lights that are transforming the way people access lighting. There are a lot of amazing NGOs doing work to address the issue of rural household lighting but I think they are at best a fill-gap to an existing market gap. The mass market solution (LED + small rechargeable battery + 1 W solar panel) that will really make a difference will be Chinese and at a price that will encourage extremely fast adoption rates. This is evident from the introduction of LED flashlights in Mali that completely took over the market in less than six months.

I also document the common way most cell phone charging is done in an off-grid environment. While it may not the be the most power efficient or battery safe method it works and is both cheap to the supplier and consumer. Used car batteries you can see are the 'power lines' in a lot of African villages that form the basis of distributed power distribution.

More at http://buildafrica.org/2009/04/28/led-lights-and-12vcell-phone-charging-mali/

Matt Berg is exactly right. LED light, battery, and small solar packages will hit the market within a year or two. LED lights and cell phones bring most if not all of the world's population into the electric (and communication) network. They can also be charged with a hand crank or bicycle generator. Extra 6 volt motorcycle and 12 volt car batteries can be charged in the course of driving a car or truck. Minimum "clean" electricity is affordably feasible in the world today, if only we realize it.

I wish the US government noticed. By my count, there have been over 700,000 solar/dynamo am/fm/sw radios distributed in Afghanistan by US and NATO forces since before our 2001 invasion. None of them can charge a cell phone or a standard size battery as currently configured. US AID is sending 16,000 solar/dynamo radios to the Sudan this year and plans to send 250,000 over the next few years as part of a nation-building program. None of them, so far, will charge a cell phone or an extra battery. All of them could.

These techniques can also be useful when the grid goes down, which is one reason why I say:

Solar IS Civil Defense

Solar IS Civil Defense, Illustrated

Solar IS Civil Defense
Like this solar LED light and AA battery charger


or this solar/dynamo am/fm/sw radio, similar to the ones US and NATO forces have distributed in Afghanistan.

Solar IS Civil Defense
and, after all,
we are at war.


Solar IS Civil Defense
a flashlight, radio or cell phone, an extra set of batteries
solar powered
with hand or foot operated dynamo back-up,
emergency lighting and communication
day or night
from sunlight or
muscle power.

One solar component
is an LED flashlight
which also charges AA batteries.
This design allows for
battery switching,
charging a second set of batteries
to use in other devices.

The Bogolight is a charger and light
with an international development
addition:
each light bought
buys another solar LED light and battery charger
for someone who has no access to electricity
in this world.

Solar IS Civil Defense in another way.


US and NATO forces have distributed
solar/dynamo am/fm/sw radios
in Afghanistan.

Those solar/dynamos could easily charge
AA batteries
and establish a low power DC grid
through battery switching.
This level of survival electricity
would raise the standard of living
for most Afghanis,
helping to rebuild their lives
as well as their country and economy.

This circuit diagram is one way
to add this capability to the present
solar/dynamo radios now in Afghanistan.



The image I have is of a
solar swadeshi, hand-made electricity.
Instead of turning the handle
of the charkha spinning wheel
making thread
for khadi cloth
an hour a day as Gandhi did,
turning the crank of a dynamo a half hour a day,
the direct production of survival power
for yourself, your family, and your community,
swadeshi, local production.

How did Gandhi's Pashtun colleague,
Badshah Khan practice it?
And could his example
help bring peace back
today?

My Solar Christmas

As a Christmas gift, I donated solar ovens to people in the refugee camps around Darfur. For the people there, who are at risk every time they have to leave the camp to seek scarce fuel, a solar oven can mean survival.

Jewish World Watch sends two solar ovens to the Iridimi and Touloum refugee camps in Chad for $30.

There are other solar oven programs as well.

This video from German CARE is especially close to my heart because it shows a woman in one of the 3 international displaced person camps they run in Easten Chad using a solar oven and a "haybox" or retained heat cooker to prepare a meal.



The haybox is simply an insulated box into which you place a hot pot. The heat has nowhere to go but into the food. You can also use a stone as a heat reservoir: heat the stone, place it in the box with a pot of food, cook. It's an old, old technique updated with solar. I love these ancient solutions to common problems.

Here's another youtube report on a solar cooker workshop held in Nyala, Sudan under the auspices of the Darfur Peace and Development Organization.



I also gave the gift of bees and trees as I do every year through Heifer International. Donate bees, trees, rabbits, geese, chickens, goats, as well as heifers to a project from their catalog somewhere around the world, including the US, in the names of your loved ones.

I like to give bees because they are all about pollination and improving agricultural production. Investment in pollination in these days of colony cluster disease is especially important.

I like trees because they are also a carbon offset. I've given a decade and more's worth of 60 trees a year to Heifer International. That should do something to absorb some of the carbon my energy use has released to the atmosphere.



Last but certainly not least, I also gave a few solar LED flashlights and AA battery chargers to friends and family. These Bogolights are very well designed with one button (on and off) and one screw to secure the battery bay. There's even a phosphorescent band so you can find the flashlight in the dark. They work as reading lights too. I know because I tried them out. They also use standard AA rechargeable batteries and allow for battery switching, charging one set of batteries while using another set in a second device.

Bogo means "buy one, give one" by which they mean, you spend $25 to buy one for yourself and the company sends a second to somebody in the developing world. You can even choose where and what program. A good deal.

I gave these solar flashlights because

Solar IS Civil Defense

Cell Phone Solar: The Video

I wrote about Cell Phone Solar before at solarray and in one of my diaries at dailykos.


What I wrote a few months ago and what I learned in Jamaica is still true:

Cell phones change everything
Cell phone solar with AA/D battery charging is a useful minimum scale
The price point should be $10 American or less

Cell Phone Solar: What I Learned in Jamaica

Driving up to Junction on twenty miles of bad road, we stopped for directions at a gas station and picked up an older woman waiting for a ride who guided us the rest of the way. A mile or two later, we turned a corner and saw a line of wind turbines on the slopes of Don Figeroa Mountain, the Wigton wind project (http://www.mct.gov.jm/energy_5.htm). I turned in my seat and asked the woman on her way to Junction whether the wind machines had made any difference.

She said, "No, mon, we still have to pay for the electric and the gas."

A little farther down the road we passed a sign for DigiCel, the local cell phone company. I turned to her again and said, "But the cell phone changed everything, didn't it?"

She smiled widely and nodded deeply.


On the sun porch and veranda, we videotaped the solar electric light system we'd brought. We showed the three different sizes of interconnecting solar panels and LED lamps with batteries in their cases and displayed the different sets of connectors. We had one connector to go from the battery to a USB device, another was a 12 volt socket like a car lighter. We had a set of attachments to charge cell phones from the solar batteries and another that let us connect directly to the solar panels as well.

In fact, we also had a solar/dynamo flashlight/radio which we were using to charge the rechargeable AAs the digital cameras required and a hand cranked dynamo specifically designed for charging cell phones. From what we saw, people in Jamaica were using mostly AAs and D cell batteries but we didn't have a D cell battery bay, only the one for AAs, a set of alligator clips,, and the multimeter.

We had cell phone solar.

Cell phone solar and AA/D cell charging: that's emergency, camping, and most of the world and it's a scale that is understandable, accessible, and probably affordable.


One night, I was talking to some Jamaican kids at Doreen's bar, the local watering hole a few steps away from the guest house. We showed them the lights and explained how the batteries in the lamps could also charge cell phones. They liked that idea a lot. I told them that the large solar lights cost $75 American and the smallest, the one on my backpack, was $30 American. They didn't like that. I said I thought solar lights and cell phone chargers could probably be available for $5 to $10 American and their eyes lit up.


Here's what I learned in Jamaica:
Cell phones change everything.
Cell phone solar with AA/D battery charging is a useful minimum scale.
The price point should be around $10 American or less.

Gaian Design of Ecological Alchemy

A history of New Alchemy Institute. Here is the core of their natural systems designs.

_A Safe and Sustainable World: The Promise of Ecological Design_ by Nancy Jack Todd
Washington: Island Press, 2005
ISBN 1-55963-778-1
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?userid=fz1mCrlAEn&isbn=1559637781&itm=1

(82-83) The living world remained our conceptual model for the architecture of the bioshelters. Evolution is continuous, dynamic, and highly adaptive. As John was wont to point out, the Laws of Thermodynamics determine that there is a progressive deterioration in the quality of energy, but living forms create spatial form and morphic order. In defiance of entropy, energy can be harnessed to work on the side of life - which is precisely what we were trying to do.

(190) A Gaian worldview holds all life to be a sacred ecology in which humankind serves as steward.

(155) Gaia knows what she is doing, and our best bet is to get better at playing junior partner in the overall scheme of things.

(142) We had, in our experiments in applied Gaia, decoded some of the elements for healing both people and the planet and had helped to give the world what Gregory Bateson had called a "paradigm with a future."

(162-163) Twelve principles fundamental to the practice of ecological design:

1. Geological and mineral diversity must be present to evolve the biological responsiveness of rich soils.
2. Nutrient reservoirs are essential to keep such essentials as nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium available or the pants.
3. Steep gradients between subcomponents must be engineered into the system to enable the biological elements to evolve rapidly to assist in the breakdown of toxic materials.
4. High rates of exchange must be created by maximizing surface areas that house the bacteria that determine the metabolism of the system and facilitate treatment.
5. Periodic and random pulsed exchanges improve performance. Just as random perturbations foster resilience in nature. in living technologies altering water flow creates self-organization in the system.
6. Cellular design is the structural model as it is in nature where cells are the organizing unit. Expansion of system should also use a cellular model, as in increasing the number of tanks.
7. A law of the minimum must be incorporated. At least three ecosystems such as a marsh, a pond, and a terrestrial area are needed to perform the assigned function and maintain overall stability.
8. Microbial communities must be introduced periodically from the natural world to maintain diversity and facilitate evolutionary processes.
9. Photosynthetic foundations are essential as oxygen-producing plants foster ecosystems that require less energy, aeration, and chemical management.
10. Phylogenetic diversity must be encouraged as a range of aquatic animals from the unicellular to snails to fish are as essential to the evolution and self-maintenance of the system as the plants.
11. Sequenced and repeated seedings are part of maintenance as a self-contained system cannot be isolated but must be interlinked through gaseous, nutrient, mineral, and biological pathways to the external environment.
12. Ecological design should reflect the macrocosmos in the microcosmos, representing the natural world miniaturized and reflecting its proportions, as in terrestrial to oceanic and aquatic areas.

(183) This approach to watershed restoration involves the following:
1. Modifying hydrological cycles on a microscale.
2. Working first upstream then downstream in the watershed,
3. Developing many local points of intervention.
4. Allowing local topography, including buildings, parking lots, and roadways, to direct design.
5. Employing natural systems engineering.
6. Incorporating organisms such as fungi, mosses, and higher plants to sequester metals, bind phosphorus, and destroy pathogens or to break down organic compounds, including petroleum-based products.